Evanston prides itself on its diversity, and the Evanston Human Relations Commission plays an integral role in encouraging that diversity to thrive.
“We help people exercise human and civil rights,” said Paula Haynes, executive director of the commission.
“We’re mediators who help citizens with all kinds of issues, from residents claiming their neighbor’s tree roots are destroying their basement’s foundation to grandmothers who call and say their daughters won’t let them see their grandchildren.”
Considered the oldest community commission on the North Shore, the group was created in 1961 with a mandate to improve race relations in Evanston.
The full-time staff consists of an executive director, secretary and two human relations specialists responsible for administering and enforcing the Fair Housing and the Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinances. A governing board of nine residents, appointed by the mayor and City Council, meets monthly.
The commission is developing a strategic plan that will update and amend its ordinance to incorporate the protective classes identified in the civil rights legislation of the last 30 years. The agency hopes to have the plan completed by the end of the year.
Despite struggling to balance its many roles in the community, particularly in holding community dialogues on race issues, the commission has become a model for other communities interested in protecting the rights of all its residents.
“We’re problem-solvers,” Haynes said. “We investigate all kinds of problems–analyze them, study them and come up with ways to address those problems.”
In a 12-month period, the commission handles about 3,000 complaints from residents. About 75 percent involve fair-housing infractions, Haynes said. The remainder includes consumer-merchant conflicts, landlord-tenant disputes and issues involving people of color.
“We get accused of being pro-black or are viewed as a minority organization,” Haynes said, “but nothing could be further from the truth. People are quite surprised to discover that the majority of folks we assist are white.”
Perception is one of Haynes’ biggest challenges, which is why much of her time is spent educating the community on safety and civility issues.
“We have become a society that has forgotten the golden rule of how to be nice to one another,” Haynes said.
One of the commission’s many roles is to show residents how to treat each other with respect, an issue that recently arose when the commission received complaints regarding pizza deliveries to low-income areas in Evanston.
“We received calls of selective deliveries, not because it happened, but because they anticipated that it might,” Haynes said.
In response, the commission issued 200 letters to restaurants reiterating the Illinois Human Rights Act. “We asked them to develop a delivery policy that is inclusive,” Haynes said.
Haynes issued a finding: In summary, she didn’t find the pizza delivery companies guilty of discrimination. She held a training session last month for restaurants on how to create inclusive delivery policies.
Maintaining diversity and fairness in housing is another issue that the commission manages by enforcing the Fair Housing and the Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinances.
New commissioner
Jason Nehal discovered the commission only months after he relocated last year to Evanston from Cleveland for a job. He and his wife, Elinor Johnson, and their toddler, Rebecca, were involved in a landlord-tenant dispute. As it escalated, Johnson went online to the Evanston Public Library’s Web site to research landlord laws. She soon was directed to the Human Relations Commission, whose mediators eventually settled the dispute for the family out of court.
Nehal was intrigued by the role that the commission played in his dispute. As a career public-health professional who comes in contact with many social-justice issues, he decided to get involved and is now on the commission’s board.
“It was interesting to move to Evanston,” Nehal said. “Within eight square miles, there is every possible kind of person and any possible income level. It’s the most diverse small area I’ve ever lived in.
“I joined to find a way to work with the community to help improve the disparity and break down barriers between people.”
Evanston resident Anya Cordell has made her own inroads at breaking down those barriers. She moved to Evanston with her family 10 years ago because she wanted to live in a diverse community.
Cordell became outspoken when Ricky Byrdsong, the former Northwestern University basketball coach, was shot and killed one door away from her home in July 1999 by Benjamin Smith.
“My mission is to deal with human relations,” she said.
Call for conversation
She and her husband decided to open up their home for community conversation on the racially motivated shooting.
“I think we should have venues for community conversation,” Cordell said. “Where do we have a conversation like that? Who hosts that? I made an assumption that the Human Relations Commission might be such a body.”
But when she approached the commission about holding a forum to discuss the impact of the April 1999 school shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., the commission and other school and city governmental bodies declined out of a concern that it might encourage copycat behavior.
When the Ku Klux Klan came to Skokie last December, Cordell and her husband again went before the commission, seeking its support, but became frustrated.
“They were at a loss within their structure to respond to it,” Cordell said, adding that the board did decide to encourage a boycott of the event, just as it had previously when white supremacist Matthew Hale visited the NU campus.”
Hale is the leader of the white supremacist World Church of the Creator, where Benjamin Smith once had been a member.
“As a civic body, I can’t say I personally have found that it is useful for the issues I’ve tried to address there,” Cordell said.
However, she emphasized that the commission and Haynes have a tremendous amount of good intent when dealing with very difficult issues. And she acknowledged that the commission recently has become the public venue that she wanted for community conversations, particularly when it recently held a meeting on racial profiling in Evanston.
“We need to do more community dialogue and community meetings,” Haynes acknowledged. “When the Klan came to Skokie, it was tough for me. Anya and I are certainly on the same page when it comes to that. There were differences of opinion on how it was addressed. I felt strongly that since it was in Skokie, we needed to respect their wishes not to confront the Klan.”
The commission now works regionally with other local communities in addressing racial conflicts, she added.
Haynes said her challenge is to make people realize that they have more in common than they have differences while offering the platform for them to be heard and treated fairly.
“This is something we should be living and prophesying daily,” she said. “We need to live it.
“Our challenge is–and I’ll quote Rodney King–`Why can’t we all get along?'”
– – –
The Human Relations Commission of Evanston is seeking residents interested in serving on its governing board. There will be two vacancies, in September and October, both for three-year terms.
Human Relations Commission
The facts
Address: 2100 Ridge Ave., Suite 1500, Evanston
Phone: 847-866-2920
Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday
Home visits: Available for the elderly and disabled
Meetings: 7:30 p.m. the fourth Wednesday of each month, generally at the Evanston Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave. All meetings are open to the public.
Web site: www.cityofevanston.gov
Annual events
– Community picnic. This year, the picnic will be held from noon to 5 p.m. Aug. 26 at the civic center.
– Summer Youth Employment Program, which the commission administers. Each April, the commission solicits 900 Evanston businesses for summer employment positions for teens and holds a job fair. Last year, the fair attracted more than 600 youths, and the program provided summer jobs for 180 14- to 18-year-olds in community cleanup, theater, the arts, computers and with the city.
